Metal nanomaterials have attracted considerable interest because of their unique size- and shape-dependent chemical and physical properties, as well as their potential applications in catalysis, information storage, electrochemical devices, and biological and chemical sensing. These small, metal-containing materials have been formed in various shapes such as wires or spheres. They are said to be nanomaterials and to have nanostructures where they have at least one dimension of interest of about one hundred nanometers or less. Such useful nanostructures have generally contained relatively expensive metals such as the noble metals, rare earth group metals, magnetic metals, and the like. And, as reported in the literature, the nanostructures have been made by complicated and sometimes low-yield processes. For example, most existing methods for synthesizing such materials focus on template or surfactant processes, electrochemical depositions, and sol-gel approaches. However, such methods require that either the template/surfactant/substrate be thoroughly removed for purifying the product or the reaction be conducted at elevated temperatures. There remains a need for simpler methods of producing metal nanostructures and for producing them in relatively large quantities.